She Who Rides the Storm (The Gods-Touched Duology)

Grating snapped shut across the doorway before Lia could back out of the ring. Pulling at it, she could see the door inside the grate still hanging open, but the barriers weren’t meant to be opened from her side. She put her back to the grate, her heart deflating in her chest. Across the arena, two auroshes were screaming at each other, one on the ground, the other stabbing its horn into the first’s tender underside.

Her eyes darted up, the too-smooth, Basist-made arena a reminder of days before shapeshifters. People hung over the railings at the top, some screaming at her to run, some to fight, some that they’d help her, while others laughed, crowing that they wanted to see what happened next.

The standing auroshe—a beautiful silver paint with broken teeth—pulled its horn from the downed auroshe’s side, nostrils flaring as it swiveled around to stare at Lia. It had an odd, unbalanced look, one horn dripping red, the other broken off near its skull. It took a curious step toward Lia.

“Get out of the ring!” an onlooker shouted.

Lia rattled the grate as the creature’s muzzle wrinkled in a snarl. Vivi would have torn apart anything that came into his space except for Lia herself, or maybe a hostler bearing food. But Vivi had good manners for an auroshe, while this one had been abused, starved—

“Open the grate!” Lia yelled. She’d been talking to someone inside until a man with a knife had started toward them, sending her through the door. Dodging a knife sounded a lot better than dodging an auroshe’s horn. “Let me out!”

The door beyond the grate pulled shut in answer.

The creature was now zigzagging toward Lia, pink foam dripping from its bared teeth. Lia’s sweaty fingers went to the knots in her scarf, but she couldn’t make herself pull it off, so she undid her belt and stepped out of her overskirt, leaving her underskirts bare in the yellow torchlight. Someone in the crowd catcalled, sending a torrent of laughter through the arena.

Whipping its tail, the auroshe bolted forward, but Lia was ready, holding the overskirt out and darting from behind it. The auroshe crashed into the wall, its one intact horn taking the brunt of the charge, snapping off to a jagged nub.

“Lia!” a voice called from above. “Try to reach!”

Lia’s eyes darted up to find Mateo hanging over the railing, his hands open as if he thought she could jump into his arms. Stupid, useless boy. At least he’s trying to help, I guess. Maybe if Lia had had help from Calsta, she could have jumped to him, but Calsta was, as she had been since Lia touched Ewan, silent. Lia ran along the wall looking for cracks in the slick surface, but there was nothing to find. Not even the spot the auroshe had crashed into was marked, as if whatever the Basists had used to make this place was indestructible.

The auroshe had recovered and was watching her closely, head tilted as it eyed the skirt trailing from her hand. Lia cursed inside her head. She wouldn’t be able to use it the same way again. Auroshes were too smart.

“Here!” Mateo called, pulling something from around his shoulders and hanging it down toward her. His drawing satchel. “No, wait, look out!” he cried.

Lia turned just in time to dart out of the auroshe’s way. The creature changed direction midcharge, snaking its head around to bite at Lia’s legs. Lia kicked it under the chin, then spun to kick it again where the auroshe’s jaw met its skull. The auroshe skittered backward with a hiss.

The only way to end this was to get close enough to touch the auroshe between the horns. That was how Devoted tamed auroshes and won their loyalty. It was a declaration of dominance that auroshes understood, a show of skill that proved they were worthy riders. No one had managed to claim Vivi from Lia after two years of trying. For this beast Lia would have to do it in one try with no help standing by. And with nothing from Calsta.

“Drop the satchel!” she yelled to Mateo. If only she could get to the creature’s head, then—

Mateo let the bag go just as the auroshe charged again. Lia turned away, holding the skirt behind her like a cape as she bent her body forward. She flipped backward, tucking so she was out of the way when the auroshe’s broken horn sliced through the skirt.

As Lia landed next to the creature, the skirt caught and she jerked the beast’s head toward her, the thing’s wide, bloody mouth snapping at her neck. Skirt wound around her arm, Lia yanked the auroshe’s head toward her again, delivered one kick to the soft underside of its throat, then rolled into a second kick, which landed on its front knee. The auroshe reared above her, its cloven hooves cutting toward her. Lia rolled out of the way as the auroshe came down, biting up a mouthful of her underskirts.

Lia found her feet, but the thing jerked backward, dragging fast enough to pull her off-balance, though not so hard that the skirt tore. The auroshe watched her, its black eyes calculating.

“Lia! I’m coming—”

“You come down here and we both die, Mateo.” Trying to control her breaths, Lia matched her steps to the auroshe’s measured tread before the creature could pull her over, then threw her weight to the side. The auroshe lunged with her, letting go of her skirt.

Lia dove into a roll, changing her direction, then arched up into a flip that landed a heel kick just over the creature’s eye.

The crowd screamed in appreciation.

Lia’s insides twisted. These people were all here to watch a bloody fight, the poor auroshes with no choice but to provide one. Mateo was up there too, both too soft to have kept the auroshe master out of the stables for a few minutes and too hard to want to help Lia out of a difficult situation even when it would cost him nothing. And Vivi. She’d looked through all the stalls inside. Vivi wasn’t here.

As the auroshe shook its head to shed Lia’s overskirt, Lia leapt away from it and snatched up the satchel, slinging it over her shoulder. She wanted to scream. At the world. At these awful high khonins. At Mateo. At the auroshe she didn’t actually want to hurt.

The creature came at her again. This time Lia dodged to the side, grabbed across the points of its shoulders, and flipped up onto its back. Rearing, the auroshe screamed.

Before the creature could roll, Lia pulled herself into a crouch on its withers and crawled forward so her weight was on its neck, forcing its head to dip toward the ground. Then she whipped the satchel off, looped the strap over the auroshe’s head, and twisted it tight around its jagged mouth, trapping it closed.

Lia jumped off the creature’s back before it could react. She wound the satchel strap around its mouth again, then tangled it on one of the auroshe’s forelegs when it tried to rear. The auroshe screamed, stumbled, and went over.

Lia ran to the auroshe’s head. Placing a hand between its broken horns, she breathed into its long, slitted nostrils. The thing went stock-still.

Just the way Vivi had.

“I’m sorry.” She breathed again into its nostrils, pressing hard between its horns while she stroked its cheek. Auroshes were loyal creatures. Submissive even, if you could get close enough to show them you were worth following. Not many knew it. Not many had the skills to try even if they did know.

The auroshe lay frozen for a second longer, then all at once it relaxed, curling toward Lia to rest its nose against her knee.

She’d done it. Without Calsta’s power.

The grate creaked open, and a man with a torch raised in front of him like a sword poked his head out. The auroshe twitched at the sight of flame but didn’t move.

“What in Calsta’s name have you done—” he started.

“And that’s a true victory!” Mateo’s voice rang out above. The man’s head jerked up toward Mateo, who stood at the railing, his arms raised. “If you want to meet the warrior herself, she’ll be outside, signing autographs. If you’re lucky, we’ll tell you when she’ll be appearing next.…”

The man lowered the torch so it was between him and Lia. “You get up. Come with me.”

Lia patted the auroshe’s cheek and got to her feet, waiting while the creature slowly rose behind her. She undid the satchel strap around its mouth and leg, and it nosed her shoulder once when she rubbed a hand under its jaw. It had mites, poor thing.

Shrinking back, the man raised the torch even higher. “What are you, a dirt witch?”

Lia’s fists clenched, and she could feel the man looking at the auroshe behind her as if it were her shadow—her true shape revealed.

A flurry at the grate caught her attention, Mateo spilling into the arena with the odd man who had brought them down to the lower level, his single khonin knot twisted behind his ear and a cloud of malt fumes hovering about him.

“I discovered this girl,” he was slurring, his hands raised to the crowd. “I found her, I put her in the ring. I knew she’d win, and now at ten-to-one odds…”

Mateo ran to Lia, very obviously trying not to care about the auroshe looming just behind her. He grabbed her hand and thrust it up into the air with a cry of triumph. “The one and only lady brave enough to enter a ring with an untamed beast. Come back soon, and we’ll have more tricks to show you!” Mateo tried to steer her toward the open grate.

Lia resisted, stroking the auroshe’s cheek when it put its head down on her shoulder.

The high khonins hanging over the railings screamed and yelled. Lia hated all of them.

“She’ll be great for business, don’t you think, Bastion?” Mateo said, pulling at Lia’s hand in earnest. “There are guards waiting for you just outside,” he whispered into her ear. “We’re going to have to run.” He kept the smile pasted on for the man with the torch. “I’ll send over a proposal, and we can talk about percentages.” Pointing at her scarf, he grinned. “Nice touch, eh? So mysterious. People are lining up just to see her leave.”

Lia pulled away, the auroshe flinching when the man with the torch took a step in its direction. She couldn’t leave the poor thing here. “Can you mount without a saddle, or do you need a boost?” she murmured to Mateo.

“A boost? Lia, if you think—”

Lia spun around and vaulted onto the creature’s back. “Which is it, Mateo?”

Mateo climbed up beside her, and Lia kicked the auroshe forward, letting it snap at the two men blocking the door to get them out of the way.

High khonins were flooding the cages, so Lia gave the auroshe its head. The creature rushed the crowd, scenting the fresh sea air above, sending the high khonins screeching in all directions to avoid its sharpened hooves. Mateo clung to Lia’s back until they’d gotten past. The high khonins began to laugh and clap, and Lia felt Mateo sit up and wave to them as if it all had been some kind of stunt.

The auroshe didn’t go the way they’d come in, but took a different hallway to another metal-grated door, the other side of it a Sand Cay alleyway. “Open it!” Lia called to the guard, who, in the face of a crowing auroshe, pushed open the grate and pressed himself against the wall.

On the other side, the auroshe practically danced, giving playful little leaps down the alley that made Lia want to laugh. When the auroshe threw its head back and crowed up at the night sky, Lia joined it, something inside her suddenly free.

When they got to the road, Mateo cleared his throat. “What’s the plan now?” His voice was strained.

“You get off. Take the skiff back, and I’ll…”

“… find somewhere in your father’s stables to hide this… thing?” Mateo shook his head behind her. “Take the trade road and try to look like a Devoted.”

“Try?” Lia wanted to laugh and cry all at once. But no one challenged them when they got to the last dregs of the day’s traffic, the trade gate looming ahead. It was closed.

Lia clenched her eyes shut. Father had said they were closing it at night because of her. “How do we—”

“Just keep riding,” Mateo said.

When they got to the gate, he pulled open his satchel, which was still looped across Lia’s shoulders, and extracted a few coins. “Official business,” he said to the guard who came out of the gatehouse. “We’d appreciate it if you don’t mention it around.”

“I can’t open the gate.” The man scowled, but Lia could feel him fidgeting, pointedly not looking at the raggedy auroshe. He couldn’t possibly believe they were official anything—Lia in an underskirt with most of her face covered, Mateo with his fancy boots, like a dandy who’d just found a new mistress.

“I could probably knock him unconscious before anyone else comes,” Lia whispered. “We can go through the smaller gate the guards use.”

“What? No.” Mateo cleared his throat, then raised his voice to the guard again. “I think I’ve met you before, haven’t I?” He dismounted and gave an overly flourished bow. “I guess I wasn’t being exactly honest just now. This lady is the star of… well.” He lowered his voice. “You haven’t heard of the fights, have you?”

The guard’s scowl deepened. “The fights? What did you do, steal one of the beasts?”

“No, she defeated it. She’s the newest thing on the circuit. No more auroshes fighting each other, my friend—that’s boring. This girl can subdue an auroshe with her bare hands. No weapons, even.” Mateo sounded like a market hawker attempting to sell the guard a moldy wheel of cheese. “I could get you in. Front-row seats. Maybe even set your first bet, because I know you’ll win.”

The man squinted. “I am off tomorrow.”

Lia’s mouth fell open. Was it really so easy to bribe a guard in Chaol?

Her father had said the governor let the lower cays fend for themselves.

The auroshe’s head jerked to the side at some loud laughter down the street. It shuffled its feet, and Lia began to worry it would bolt before any doors actually opened. “Mateo…,” she whispered.

“Perfect, then we’ll see you there?” Mateo pulled himself back onto the auroshe, though Lia could feel the tense set to his muscles, as if he’d found himself astride a very large and hungry snake. “If you could just open the door, I’ll get this girl—both these girls—to where she can rest.”

The guard laughed, then went back to the gate and opened a smaller one set right next to its gargantuan hinge. “At least a silver round on the table for me tomorrow night, you hear?”

Mateo dug a hand into the satchel once again and took out another coin. “You won’t have to wait until tomorrow, friend.”

And, just like that, they were past. No swords, no auroshe teeth, and no blood. Lia started laughing once they were through the gate and on the bridge to the mainland, the sea breeze threatening to push them into the river. “How did you do that?” she asked. “You did it back in the arena, too. They would have swarmed me and never let us go if you hadn’t been there—you just started talking, and people listened instead of trying to stab you.”

“Is that what you want to do when I talk? Stab me?”

“Usually.”

He chuckled, swaying behind her. “Thanks for not letting this thing bite me when I got off. What are we going to do with it?”

“I think you were right about ‘it’ being a ‘she.’ ” Lia gave the auroshe a fond pat on the neck, barely managing to pull the mare back from a table laden with raw cuts of pig. “I’m going to call her Rosie.”

“Of course you are,” Mateo sighed.

“She’s got kind of a pinkish tint, don’t you think? That’s pretty rare.” Lia leaned down to put her cheek against Rosie’s neck. “And she’s so placid. It’s like she’s relieved I found her, and now all she wants to do is go lie down somewhere. Like your little mare. Bella, right?”

She felt Mateo nod behind her as Rosie darted toward a donkey cart, the donkey letting out a bloodcurdling bray before Lia brought the auroshe to a halt.

“Placid. That’s just what I was going to say.”

“In need of some training, sure. But she’s had a hard life. The fact that she hasn’t tried to eat you yet is actually quite commendable.” Lia tried not to be too amused when he stiffened behind her. But the joke faded almost before she’d finished saying it. How could she train Rosie? How could she even keep Rosie? She was leaving.

The elation of getting away died inside her. She’d gone to the fights to get Vivi, and Vivi hadn’t been there. What now?

She was supposed to be persuading Mateo to show her around the tomb so she could map it for Knox. Then she and her family could leave. Be free. Hugging her arms around Rosie’s neck, Lia tried to hold back the tears that were suddenly burning in her eyes. She’d be free, but Vivi wouldn’t be. He’d be killed. Sent to the fights. Maybe another Devoted would bond with him, but even that felt like a future she couldn’t stomach.

“Are you all right?” Mateo’s voice was too quiet, as if he wasn’t sure he really wanted to ask.

“I think I ruined your satchel,” Lia said, and sniffed. “I’d get you a new one, but then your father might think it’s a sign that he should start choosing flowers for our bridal wreaths.”

Mateo laughed again. “I have this rule against asking people who can take down an auroshe with their bare hands about paying for things they ruin.”

Lia looked up into the sky, trying not to feel small. If Vivi wasn’t at the governor’s house or the fights, what had Ewan done with him? “I thought the auroshe master was going to torch me right there in the ring.”

“People like something new. Something impossible.” Mateo shifted behind her. “It was pretty impressive, what you did in there. Terrifying, sure. But impressive.”

“You could have just let the auroshe gut me, and all this talk about marriage would be over. I wouldn’t have been able to get to her head without your satchel.”

“If that’s your version of a thank-you, then you are very welcome. We make a good team.” He bristled when she stifled a chuckle, but he thought it was mostly show. “You just said—”

“Yes. You’re right. We’re a good team. You can be my weapons handler anytime. Next time bring me a sword, would you?”

“I’m assuming there was no sign of Vivi down there?” Mateo gave her scarf a tug. “Um, this is coming undone.”

Lia’s heart skipped a beat, her hands rushing to the blue silk and finding curls spilling out from where a knot had come loose. She rewrapped the ends of her scarf a little too hurriedly, her hair pulling tight against her scalp. “Thanks. And no, he wasn’t there.”

“You know,” he said, “if Vivi didn’t get sold off to the fights, that means we have a mystery on our hands here. How are we going to figure out where he really is?”

Lia’s fingers tangled in the ends of her scarf as she finished tying it. “We?”

“And I suppose it wouldn’t be so inconvenient to take you to the dig. Maybe. Only if you’re actually a tiny bit interested, though. I’d like to see you try one of those flips against Patenga’s traps.”

A smile bloomed under Lia’s scarf before she could stop it. She turned as best she could, the worst of the crowds having given way to fields, so there wasn’t as much for Rosie to attack. “You’ll help me? You’re going to be nice?”

His eyes skittered to the side, then slowly slid up to meet her gaze. “You know I’m sick, right?”

“It was a little hard to miss after your episode in the marketplace.”

“Right, well, it seems like we’ve only got a few days left between us, and you’re a pretty good fighter. I already said I’d rather we were on the same side, and I… can see where you’re coming from with the pretending-to-go-along-with-it stuff. And there’s actually something you could help me with at the dig.”

Something she could help with, like an exchange? Lia let that sit, breathing in deep as if suddenly, for the first time in years, her lungs were clear. “All right.”

When they got back to the cliff house, Mateo pointed to a little path that led to the beaches below, and they rode down. The waves left barely enough black sand for Rosie to walk across, making her skip and twist.

“Here.” He pointed to a cave that drilled back into the rocks. “No one else comes down here and… I can feed her, I guess. Until we come up with something else? You can come too and we’ll call it romantic walks on the beach.”

“I like the idea of a romantic walk that involves carting raw, bloody meat down a cliff.” Lia dismounted but held on to Rosie’s mane until Mateo had gotten off. “Come here.”

Mateo cleared his throat, edging back. “I’d rather stay away from the toothy end of that thing, if you don’t mind.”

“Come here.” Lia grabbed his arm and hauled him over, taking his palm and pressing it between Rosie’s horns. The auroshe’s eyes glazed, then she sighed and looked lovingly up at the two of them.

“See, now she won’t bite you. Probably. She should be able to find her own food, so you don’t need to feed her.”

“Not…” Mateo looked back up the cliffs toward his house.

“Fish, not people.” Lia laughed. “But you’ll keep an eye on her until I figure out what to do?”

“Of course I will.” He smiled, not quite looking at the auroshe.

It would have to be enough. It was enough. A surprise, coming from Mateo, but he’d been full of surprises all night.

Mateo looked out into the waves, his nose wrinkling. “The marriage part of all this is a ruse, right? You don’t secretly want to marry me for my beautiful coats? I wouldn’t blame you.”

There were a thousand jokes Lia could have cracked, a thousand laughs they could have had, but Lia wasn’t ready to laugh about this. Not yet. “It’s only until the Warlord leaves.” Really, only until she got inside the excavation compound. After she bled Mateo of any information he could give her, and Knox did… whatever Knox was going to do at the dig site. Then Lia and her family would be gone, out of reach for Tual and the Warlord both, and none of this would matter. “We’ll have to fake my death or something so your father doesn’t report me to the Warlord the minute we break things off.”

“As long as it involves narmaidens and lots of pity presents sent to me from the high khonins here in Chaol.” Mateo smiled again, and it was oddly attractive, his thin face alight. He held out a hand as if he wanted to shake on it.

It was naked, no gloves, no nothing. Lia steeled herself, wondering what it was Calsta was hoarding when she forced her spiriters to refrain from touching skin. Whatever it was, Lia wanted to keep it all inside, never give a tiny bit of it away again.

But when she touched Mateo’s palm, all she felt was rough skin. She blinked down at their hands, wondering how his wasn’t as smooth and preened as the rest of him. Mateo noticed her surprise. “You didn’t expect me to have calluses. No one ever does.”

“I guess not.” Lia smiled. Back when she’d been allowed to shake hands, no one had expected her to have calluses either.

Before the sun was properly peeking out from the horizon, Anwei rose from her bed and went to the loose floorboards in the herb room. Gulya wouldn’t wake for at least another hour, so Anwei pulled out her secret jar, thick inside with gauzy web. Gamtooth spinners enjoyed the dark.

Shuddering, Anwei pushed the jar down the workbench so she didn’t accidentally touch it, then scanned the other jars in her hidden treasure trove, inhaling slightly to find hints of flaring red between the browns and greens. Bright yellow spiky leaves of barin, orange nalitria flowers, and black solomen roots. All deadly. After pulling out the jar of the knobbly, dirt-encrusted solomen, Anwei went to the table, laid out her tools, and put on a pair of thin leather gloves.

Something in the next room scraped against the stone floor. Anwei stilled, listening. Someone was in the shop.

Opening the solomen jar’s clamp with a flick of her fingers, Anwei turned toward the door. The roots had been steeping long enough to make a base for the gamtooth serum she’d promised Knox, but in its current state, the liquid would burn any low-life thief or… Anwei’s brow furrowed. Devoted? Ghost? Entire company of Trib riders looking for their missing lizard wrangler?

Shapeshifter?

Her hands paused as she remembered Knox’s question from the night they stayed in Gretis. How were you planning to do it? Kill a shapeshifter? Would poison hurt him? Arrows, knives?

When the door opened, the budding sunlight flashed across two khonin knots and a hair stick with Falan’s lily. Noa.

Noa slid into the room, her cheeks drawn. “I’ve been looking for you. You disappeared the other night.”

Anwei lowered the jar, letting the breath held inside her lungs huff out. “Where were you? We needed you, and you brought Bear into it? I thought he was one of the people you wanted to scare.”

“And I thought we were just going to scare people, not break into the governor’s study.” Noa lapsed into Elantin, but her tone stayed neutral.

Anwei held very still, her hand twitching toward the solomen roots.

Noa settled onto the bench, her back altogether too straight and her smile missing. “Bear caught me in the hall right before I went up to start the ghosts. He noticed I’d been avoiding him and…” She licked her lips. “Anwei, he already went to my father. They’re drawing contracts. The door to my cage is closing.”

Blinking, Anwei sat down in front of her friend. “And?”

“And I tried to get away from him, but he wouldn’t go, like he had a right to stand right by me for every moment of the evening. I knew you were up to more than scaring people at that ball, and that distracting the guests was important, so… I told him. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to do it at all.”

“We didn’t break into any offices, Noa. It was to scare those archeologists, like I said.”

“You are lying, Anwei. Usually I don’t mind lying because most people do their fair share, but you can’t lie to me today. I need your help. You’re the only person I can trust.”

Anwei couldn’t help the glow of warmth at her saying that. Anwei had never stayed anywhere long enough for friends. She’d hardly known she wanted one until she met Noa. Knox. Even Gulya.

“You’re the only person I know who does whatever you want and… I’ve seen Yaru’s temple. I’ve heard the governor and the magistrate whispering about her, and I’ve seen you down in the Fig Cay with the Crowteeth and the Blackhearts.” Noa licked her lips and finally let her eyes meet Anwei’s. “You wouldn’t be doing something out in the open like what we did at the ball unless you were planning to leave soon—it’s too risky for your line of work.”

This was why having a friend wasn’t something Anwei could afford. Not until after the snake-tooth man was dead. After he was gone, Anwei wouldn’t have to sneak, steal, find. She could just live.

Sitting back, Anwei folded her arms, looking Noa up and down. “That’s quite an accusation for someone who sees an apothecarist once a week for poison.” She didn’t like the way the words tasted but didn’t take them back.

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I wish I could be you, Anwei. Running around, telling handsome young men to do my bidding, stealing things, scaring people? Maybe you don’t see your life as a dream, but it’s mine.” Noa clasped her hands before her, no dramatics for once, no silly jokes. “I want to be able to leave my house without my father asking me where I’m going. To speak to whom I wish, to marry because I find someone I can’t stand to be without rather than because someone finds me vaguely amusing and has enough money to catch my father’s eye.”

Shaking her head, Anwei stood up, gathering the jar and the roots, wanting to laugh at all the things Noa didn’t understand.

“Please, Anwei, whatever it is you’re doing, let me be a part of it. Take me with you when you leave.” The waver in Noa’s voice made Anwei look up.

A tear rolled down her friend’s cheek, her eyes turning an unbecoming red. She was serious. Anwei set aside the jar once again, leaning forward on the table as she tried to come up with the right story, the right lie, and suddenly found she didn’t want to.

She liked Noa. The sight of her friend in pain hurt Anwei, like the bond between her and Knox, only there was no magic here to make her feel it. Like there was a bond between them made with words and laughter and time spent not worrying about anything. Noa knew nothing about Anwei, wasn’t part of any of the things that were important to her… and it made it easy to be with her because there was nothing deadly at stake.

But that didn’t mean she could spill out her heart and plans onto the table between them. She’d barely managed to tell Knox, and he already knew the rest of what made her up.

“Listen.” Noa snuffled. “I know you wanted ghosts at the ball because you couldn’t have the governor walking in while you stole documents from his study. Documents about that dig outside of town you mentioned. The dead shapeshifter? I was in the next room when the governor realized they were gone. Don’t lie anymore, I’m not going to tell anyone.” She smiled, a sad attempt at her dimpled, roguish visage. “How can I help?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Anwei pursed her lips. “You want to help… what?”

“I’ve been wondering that myself. What could you want from a tomb? Gold and jewels? Shapeshifter bones to make special poison? Does that boy who follows you around need something?”

“I… can’t…” Even that was an admission Anwei wanted to bite back, as if she’d lost control of her mouth. Like she’d lost control of so many other things when Knox started mattering to her. She extracted one of the long solomen roots and set it down on the table too. “You can believe whatever you want, Noa. I can’t help you.”

“You’re taking something from the dig, and it’s so big, you’ll have to run away. I need to run away too, Anwei. I’ll bring money. I’ll do whatever you want. You can trust me.”

“Trust you?” Anwei blinked, truth spilling out of her before she could stop it. “Trust you like I did at the ball? Knox almost died because you weren’t there when we needed you, Noa.”

“Beildan!” a voice whispered from the back window. Anwei turned to find the Blackheart from the plague house hunched in the open window—Jecks. His eyes stopped on the squishy roots at her fingertips and he shuddered, suddenly looking as if his message wasn’t as important to deliver as he’d thought. He glanced toward Noa. “Not a good time?”

Turning from her friend, Anwei smiled at Jecks, happy to have something so much more straightforward to deal with. “I was going to come check on you and your family today. How are they doing?” She arranged the root’s squished innards in front of her, then picked up the paring knife.

“They’re worse. The wardens are dumping victims from all the way up in the Water Cay—some of them from the governor’s house itself—and they’re paying off my boss to take care of them. He’s keeping the money, while we can hardly keep everyone fed. Please. You have to come. My daughter…” He took a ragged breath. “We need you.”

Victims from the governor’s house? Anwei held up her knife to the light, checking the edge before glancing at Noa. The high khonin looked down, her hands tightly knit in front of her. She already knew.

Anwei turned back to Jecks. “Your daughter is getting worse? What about your husband?”

“The medicine helped for the first day, but he’s worse again. Not as bad as Kaylie.”

Anwei began cutting the roots into neat slices. “I’ll be there this afternoon. I need your help with something, though.” She set the knife back down on the table.

“You need… what?” Jecks’s eyes went to the roots, one of his hands pulling at his yellow scarf. “Nothing unnatural?”

Anwei rolled her eyes. “I’m a healer, not a witch.” She glanced at Noa again. “Let’s talk outside, Jecks.”

She could feel Noa’s green eyes on her as she went into the courtyard and shut the door behind her. Next she went to the window and shut that as well, before turning to Jecks. “There’s a Trib clan staying somewhere in this city with a leader by the name of Shale. I want you to tell me where they are lodged. Where they go. What they do. Who they talk to. I’m meeting Shale on the way to the plague house this afternoon, so if you follow me, I can make finding him easy for you.”

“And… my family?”

“I’ll do everything I can for them.”

His brow crinkled. “You wouldn’t otherwise?”

“I’ll treat them first. This sickness came from somewhere, and I’m wondering if the Trib brought it with them into the city. If you could help, I might be able to identify what exactly we’re dealing with a little faster.”

“I can do that. This afternoon?”

Anwei nodded, waving him out the courtyard gates. She waited until they had swung shut before going back in to her solomen roots and Noa. The girl didn’t say anything as Anwei picked up her knife and cut off a section of the rough, barky outsides. Black sap bled out of the root’s flesh into the dish. She needed a whole cupful for the serum that would make the shapeshifter talk.

She’d seen her father make it once. The memory pricked as she went over it in her mind, remembering the steps one by one. Gamtooth venom had been the second step.

Noa sat forward, clasping her hands in front of her. “You’re involved in treating the plague spreading through the lower cays?”

“Maybe you should tell Bear and the governor so I can help whoever’s sick at their house.”

“I can’t go back there, Anwei. I need to hide. Like you. Can’t I hide here?”

“Noa, I’m…” Anwei looked up at the girl, the air tense between them. “I wish I could help you.”

The words seemed to sit on Noa’s shoulders. She reached up to toy with her hair stick, the ends sharpened to points. “You could help me. But you won’t. There’s a difference.”

Knox’s mind suddenly yawned open above Anwei, blooming in her head where a moment ago there had been nothing. Her hands twitched, the knife slicing too deep into the root. She swore and put the knife down.

“What’s wrong?” Noa stood, looking around the room.

Anwei placed the root back in its jar and packed it into a sack with the gamtooth spinners. “I’m really busy today, is all.” She hated saying it, but she couldn’t see another way. Maybe once all this was done, she’d find another friend like Noa in another city. Another life that didn’t hold any memories from this one. “Maybe we can talk next week.” By next week she’d be gone.

Noa’s eyes narrowed, from sad to calculating in a blink. “I’ll show you that you can trust me. That the ball was a mistake I’m not going to repeat. If I prove it to you, can I come stay here? Leave with you when you go?”

“I can’t talk anymore. I’ll see you soon, Noa.” Anwei hardly looked back before running up the stairs to rap on Knox’s door, waiting a second before she pushed it open. He was standing next to his bed, his tunic only half-buttoned.

Knox’s fingers froze, and he turned away. Embarrassed? Since when had he cared about being modest?

“Um…” Anwei’s stomach fluttered at the odd feeling between them, some of it echoing from inside her head. You kissed me. But it wasn’t against the rules. That’s what he’d said, drugged to the eyeballs and giggling about a dream he’d had. A dream about her. Them. Directly after almost pushing her out the window for trying to kiss him, though it had just been business. She cleared her throat, looking away until he was done buttoning his shirt. “You need to get back into bed.”

“I can’t. There’s too much happening.” He had fastened an extra button on his tunic, his collar done clear up to his chin. It looked a little silly.

“But it’s not things you need to help with. I’m going to check on our pineapple, then pick up a few things before I get all the information on the dig from Shale.”

“I’m fine.” He cleared his throat, wrapping his scarf over his mouth. “Temple first, then…?”

Hesitating, Anwei sat down in the chair by his washstand. She didn’t really want to let him out of her sight. He wasn’t fine. She could still smell the acrid tang the poison had left inside him. “After Altahn, I’m going to the docks. Here, you can carry this.” She smiled, holding out the bag containing the roots and spiders.

He took it, his hand brushing hers. She could feel him thinking about the touch, even if she couldn’t feel what he was thinking.

Anwei wanted to know, the touch lingering in her mind too. She stood. “Let’s go.”

When they got downstairs, Anwei was both relieved and sad to see that Noa had gone, the smell of the girl’s tears still haunting the herb room.

Altahn was curled around the little pot of simmering herbs Anwei had left, the smoke nearly gone. She sat him up, and Knox arranged the assortment of food they’d picked up on the way there.

The Trib’s eyelids began to twitch the moment she pulled the pot away, his breaths coming in long, deep gasps. His hands went to his throat, where bruises from Anwei’s assault had turned an ugly purple. Anwei offered a tumbler of water from the malthouse above. “Thirsty?”

He blinked at her, head lolling to the side. “You…”

She held the tumbler to his mouth, the watered-down scent of gamtooth venom in the cup twitching in her nose as he drank it down. Not a foolproof truth serum like she would brew for the snake-tooth man, but it would open Altahn’s lips. And, perhaps, a few boils on his arms.

“Remember me? I’m Anwei. That’s Knox.” She pointed to her partner, who pushed the plate of food toward Altahn. “Nice to meet you again.”

His brow furrowed, and he sat up a bit straighter, blearily looking around the room.

“You’ve been a wonderful guest so far, but if you try to hurt us, we will probably kill you, so just take things slow. Once the herbs are out of your system, we can chat, all right? I’ve got lots of questions.” Anwei gave him her best smile before turning to Knox. “This serum needs two days to steep. Would you grab a board from the stacks in the storeroom and another glass from upstairs?”

Knox nodded and crawled back through the tunnel, then returned with the items she’d requested just as she pulled open the drop. The mirrored, false-bottomed box captured light from above and shot it down into the hiding place. Shuffling over to where the beam of light made a harsh rectangle on the floor, Anwei held her hand out for the board. Knox placed it in front of her, set the glass on top, and knelt on the opposite side. She placed the other supplies she’d brought along the edge—a sanded-glass magnifier and some corked tubes and dowels—then tied a scarf across the lower half of her face.

“Cover your mouth and nose.” Anwei waited until Knox had pulled up his scarf. He grudgingly slid over to Altahn next, to pull his shirt up over his nose before Anwei extracted the little packet of calistet from her bag. She slipped on her gloves, picked up the glass, and breathed a mouthful of hot air into it. After carefully opening the calistet packet—there was only a pinch in the very bottom—she swiped one gloved finger across the opening, then flicked the tiny bit of powder into the tumbler. The bloody smell tore at her nostrils as the little granules stuck to the condensation from her breath. She handed the glass off to Knox. He hurriedly placed it facedown on the board while she rebuttoned the calistet packet and stowed it away.

“So, tell me, Altahn.” Anwei glanced over at the Trib. The gamtooth poison would have spread enough by now to make him talk a little. “Why did your father ask you to follow us?”

“Had to make sure…” Altahn swallowed, then tried to stick a crust of bread into his mouth, though his shirt blocked the way. “See what you would do.”

“And report it to whom?” She pulled out the jar filled with spiderwebs and gestured to Knox, lowering her voice. “I need your help.”

The light dusted his forehead and the bridge of his nose as he leaned forward over the board, making little circles across his cheekbones. Anwei looked down. It was her job to look down.

Or was it? Knox had started looking down too.

“We tried… couldn’t find a way past the traps. Don’t even know where the tunnels go,” Altahn continued, his voice meandering this way and that. “If you show us…”

Sliding the web-filled jar to sit next to the board, Anwei pulled out a set of heavy leather gloves for Knox. “Shale really does want the sword, then. You wanted us to figure out where it was so you could steal it yourselves without having to pay us?”

Altahn’s eyes widened. After a moment his head bobbed forward in a nod. He managed to pull his shirt down off his nose and chin, and successfully shoved the bread into his mouth. “We needed you to get in, though. And out.” His head lolled to the side against the wall, his eyes glazing.

Why not pay a little money for method rather than offering a lot for the whole job? Shale didn’t know that Yaru was mostly separate from the Blackhearts and the Crowteeth, but pretending to offer money for a service and then stealing all the preparation in order to do it yourself was enough to get your name on a death list with any of the gangs.

Could it be this wasn’t a trap? Just incompetence from a clan chief unused to working with criminals?

“Can I ask him a question?” Knox whispered.

Anwei shrugged. “Why not?”

“How come your aura was in the wrong place when we saw you by the theater? It was like you had a fake one attached to a puppet.”

“Gash…” Altahn’s chin dipped down to his chest. “Firekey.”

Knox looked at Anwei. “He had a firekey lizard… but don’t they just blow fire?”

“To be honest, I don’t know much about firekeys or auras, either one. Narmaidens make thought connections with humans—that’s how they manage to get sailors to jump into the ocean, where they’re easier to catch. Maybe firekeys can… pretend to be people? In any case, we can’t test it now because I threw his little pet out of the carriage.” Anwei picked up the gamtooth jar. She pried open the clamp, leaving the glass top in place before pushing it toward Knox. He pulled on the gloves, his face wary.

“There are three very dangerous spiders in here.” Anwei tapped against the glass. “And I need to milk them.”

“Milk?”

“For their venom. We need it to make the snake-tooth man tell the truth about that sword of yours.”

Knox bent to look at the opaque mass of web. “And you saw me involved in this… how?”

Anwei found her sweetest smile. “Oh, I just need you to pull them out one by one.” She’d done it many times herself, but she always ended up squishing at least one of them, and gamtooth spinners took a long time to reproduce. “I’ll stun them.”

He straightened. “Why do you need me to pull them out?”

“I hate spiders. A lot.”

It took a second before Knox inched the jar closer and looked down into the mess of cottony web. “Fine.”

She glanced back at Altahn, who seemed to be snoring against the wall. “So, here’s the new plan—”

Knox looked up. “We have no map, don’t know what Shale has for us, and you already have a plan?”

Anwei paused, the glass cold between her fingers. “We have a sketch of the tomb interior from the governor—some of it, anyway. People are still talking about the fire at the ball, and odd things have been happening at the dig, so I think if we add a few frightening events, everyone inside the excavation will run the moment someone screams ‘ghost.’ ” She pushed the gamtooth jar a little closer to Knox, ignoring the tentative way he reached out to pull it toward himself. “That’s why I want to go to the docks. One of my contacts mentioned Trib powder has been leaving the harbor illegally and sent me a shipment schedule. Some is supposed to go out today. We can’t get anything but watered-down salpowder—nothing better than those little fire bursts I made for the governor’s house—without stealing it from one of those ships or from the Warlord herself, and I don’t like that second option.”

“Why do we need more-potent salpowder?”

“Because then we could make something a little more complicated. We could fix it so the ingredients combine over time, so we could drop it in a food shipment, then have it explode once it’s already inside the excavation compound.”

“You know how to do that? You know which powder we’d need to steal? They make so many different kinds… though I don’t know how. They all come from the same lizard things that apparently can throw auras.”

“Firekeys.” She didn’t touch her arm where Altahn’s little monster had burned her. “And no, I don’t know which kind of powder we’d need, but Altahn will.”

Knox looked toward the Trib, whose head was still lolling against the cave wall. He had burn scars all over his hands, and he’d reeked of salpowder the first time he came to the apothecary, as if he’d blown something up on the way. Or maybe it had been his pet the whole time.

Anwei cleared her throat. “Minerals don’t make sense to me.” They were just there in her head. They didn’t fit together like herbs and illnesses did. “I learned how to make little bursts and noisemakers like the ones I did for the ball while I was up in Trib country a few years ago, but anything more complicated than that would take some guidance. Once I see it, I can do it.” She nodded to Altahn. “And I’m fairly certain he can show me.”

Knox’s lip curled as he looked down into the gamtooth jar. “Why wouldn’t Altahn help us? We only drugged him and left him here for… how long has it been?”

“Two days, if that. He wants the sword, Knox. I think he’ll help once he understands why we’re asking. And also that we won’t give him back to his father unless he’s compliant.”

Wrinkling his nose, Knox stuck one gloved finger into the jar.

“Spinners are very aggressive, so—” Anwei broke off as Knox jerked his hand out of the jar, a black body the size of her thumb latched to the end of the glove.

Anwei lifted the lip of the calistet-laced tumbler and Knox shoved his finger under it before the spider could wriggle down to bite his wrist. The little creature bit furiously at Knox’s gloved finger for another second before its frantic attack slowed. After a moment it stopped moving entirely. Anwei slid the cup off Knox’s finger, replacing the rim against the board to keep any of the powder from escaping. Knox gently detached the spider’s bulbous black body from his glove and placed it on the board next to the cup, bright yellow stripes like lightning bolts down its back, the creature’s long, reedy legs splayed limply around it.

Knox’s normally stoic expression wrinkled with disgust as Anwei positioned the magnifier over the spider. She glanced up at him. “If we scare the excavation workers bad enough to run, maybe we’ll have enough space to wander around inside until we find our way through the tomb? If only Shale hadn’t lied about the maps. Do you think if we bribed a worker…?”

“Wait, we’re stealing the sword now? I thought we were just going to find the shapeshifter and get out.”

“The Warlord is coming, like you said. And I can’t help but think I don’t want to be here in the Commonwealth where she can find me any more than you do. Shale might not have twenty thousand silver rounds, but he’ll give us something.”

“And you want to do the job rather than just ransom Shale’s son?”

“I guess.” Concentrating on positioning the spider, Anwei was glad not to see his face as she continued. “That, and… seeing it might help us figure out what to do with yours. Right? Another shapeshifter’s sword.”

Her skin prickled when she heard Altahn stir. It didn’t matter if he heard their plan, exactly. Altahn couldn’t be allowed to leave until Knox’s money box was a good deal heavier and a shapeshifter’s severed head was buried in the fields.

Anwei was surprised when Knox merely nodded, as if that made all the sense in the world. “We don’t really have time to bribe a worker to map the compound. I think I’ve got it taken care of, though.”

Anwei looked up from her tools. “What?”

“My friend showed up in Chaol. She has a connection to the Warlord’s aukincer, who is part of the excavation crew. She’s going to get him to take her in so she can map it out for us.”

“You… have a friend?” The words came out disjointed, Anwei’s stomach dropping as if she’d missed the last step in a long staircase. “Here in Chaol?”

Knox’s head dipped forward in a nod, a strand of hair pulling free from his ponytail to hang in his face. “Lia. She’s, um… the lost Devoted. She came into the apothecary yesterday while we were talking to Shale.”

“The missing Devoted?” Anwei’s brain hummed. Knox could have friends. Parts of life that didn’t involve her. That was fine. But bringing someone else in on the plan? A Devoted? She adjusted the magnifier over the spider, bringing the light from above to a single bright, burning circle over the thing’s mouth for a split second of intense heat. When she pulled the magnifier away, a drop of venom had appeared at the very end of one of its long fangs.

Rolling the collection vial between her hands, Anwei opened her mouth, then closed it. She couldn’t find words. “Are you sure she’s not…? She isn’t here to…”

“I’m not sure.” Knox fidgeted with the jar clamp. “But she asked me for help, and she’s in a position to help us, so…”

“So another trap waiting to spring.” Anwei used a thin wooden dowel to nudge the spider’s pedipalps back to let the venom drip into her vial.

Knox’s face twisted. “She’s like my sister, and if anyone would try to escape a life of Devotion, it would be her. When she told me she could get into the dig, I just thought…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this without asking you.”

“I don’t know. I’ve just…” Lived for years in hiding. And you were the only person I let in. I didn’t realize you’d let in others, too. “I just don’t like relying on someone other than you.”

The same words he’d used before about Noa. Noa, who had promised she was trustworthy, then left them no way out of the governor’s house. “If you trust her, Knox…”

“I don’t want to believe that she’d hand me over, but yes, I’m… aware of the risk. If she comes through with maps…” He looked away, tapping at the spinner jar, his hair obscuring his expression. “The difference between knowing the layout in there and not could be the difference between us living and dying. Especially if she can show us where the director sleeps.”

It felt like adding narmaidens at the bottom of the cliff edge they were already walking along. But Anwei trusted Knox.

She did.

So she nodded. “All right. We have to let the serum steep for two days, so we’ll give her that long to get us maps. And if she doesn’t come through, we’ll go in anyway. Even a map isn’t going to change that we don’t know exactly what we’re walking into down there.”

Knox nodded, glancing at Altahn, who had begun to hum one note over and over again. “Either of us can get through traps. You’d be able to smell them, and I’d be able to see or hear anything down there. One of us can grab the sword, the other one can deal with the shapeshifter, and then we can both get out of this city for good.”

We. Anwei made herself focus on the magnifier.

“The serum will help me get what I need, but we still don’t know how to kill him, do we, Anwei?”

“Killing is easy work, Knox.” She harnessed the light, warming up the spinner’s mouth once again.

“That’s not what history books say.”

“We’ll have him subdued. I’ll have time to come up with something. That can be the first question we ask him when he’s got serum on his skin. ‘How do we kill you?’ He’ll have to answer.”

In truth, the question still writhed inside her, worse than any gamtooth spinner. Anwei frowned as the venom stopped bleeding into her vial. The spinner wasn’t producing as much as normal. She set the vial aside and looked at Knox, his face still puckered with worry. “Would you put the spinner back for me?”

Knox lifted the little thing out from under the magnifier, cracked open the jar, and slid it inside. Then he looked back at her. She could feel his eyes glued to her shoulder, the side of her neck, drawing lines down her back. The rule has always been to look away. We look away.

Anwei turned her chin, locking eyes with Knox. He didn’t look away.

Altahn’s voice slurred between them, and Knox’s eyes skittered away from Anwei to focus on the jar. The spiders. “Father can’t wait to get out of this place either.”

Sneaking Altahn to the boat launch wasn’t so hard. They carried him on a stretcher covered with bundles of what looked like dried petals and weeds to Knox but were probably cures for gout and the mange. Knox set Altahn in the middle of Anwei’s little canoe, rolling his eyes when she gestured for him to take the front paddle, as if giving him the easy end of the canoe was the only way to stop him from keeling over and drowning in the river.

Truth be told, he did feel a little weak.

Truth be told, your insides are all scraped raw like a baby who tried to swallow sand. Calsta and her little jokes. But Knox felt something inside him unwind at the sound of her voice. She was still there. Still watching over him.

“Two things,” Anwei said once she’d sat down. She extracted a little glass canister and a tube from her medicine bag. “Salpowder will be in the barrels on the dock farthest out into the gulf. They’re all sealed, but if you dip this pipe into this mixture”—she gave the canister a little shake—“then press the pipe up against the wood, it’ll react with the tar and burn a hole through it. Easy way to tap in.” She pulled out two small leather bags next. “And these are dry bags to put the powder into.”

“So when you said I should take it easy, what you meant was I should swim through choppy ocean water and… steal things from armed soldiers?” Knox held his hands out over Altahn to take the supplies.

She smiled at him, handing them over. “We both know you’re much better at the sneaky stuff. And I’m much better in the distraction role.”

Knox stowed the bags, the tube, and the glass canister into his pocket, hoping a concoction capable of making tar burn would not also make explosive powder burn. He sat down and took up his oar, and together they rowed out past the Bell Cay and the dry market toward the wave break. The water went choppy, peaking and swirling as seawater met river, making the canoe bob. It took a few minutes of following the boat traffic weaving between the pylons that held up the trade road and fighting crosscurrents before they came in sight of the last island in the chain that made up Chaol—the Dock Cay, where the gulf docks were located. Three huge sailing ships were on the riverside moorings, sailors running supplies up and down the gangplanks. Anwei veered toward a smaller barge docked on the gulf side, away from the others. Three guards with high khonin insignia stamped on their shoulders—it was some kind of fish; a salmon?—stood at attention in front of it.

Salpowder barrels. Knox watched as a woman rolled one of the barrels into the ship’s belly. Completely illegal to send them across the gulf, though it was obvious things had been trickling through. Knox dipped in his oar, following Anwei’s steering to keep in sight of but not get too close to the dock. “What now? They’ll probably kick us in the teeth if we try to get any closer.”

The mass of herbs piled on top of Altahn suddenly twitched. The boat tipped as he tried to roll to the side, clawing the blanket off his face. Altahn sat up with a gasp, only to gaze around himself in shock. His fingers were white where they gripped the canoe’s sides. “What… where…”

He swallowed hard, looked forward at Knox, then slowly, so very slowly, turned his head to look back at Anwei.

“All right?” Anwei asked, and Knox almost believed she was concerned, at least until she dipped in her oar to adjust their course. “Glad to see you awake.”

The Trib’s jaw was so tight, Knox fancied he might break a tooth if he didn’t open it soon. Waves bucked under them, washing the canoe to the side. Altahn stared at the section of rope twined between his wrists, loose enough he could move, but not so loose he’d be able to swim. When he finally spoke, his voice cracked in the briny wind. “Well, I’m not dead, I suppose.”

So calm. Knox was both proud of him and a bit unnerved.

Anwei dipped her paddle in deep, steering them toward the bustling docks ahead. “I have a job for you.”

“I thought I was paying you to do a job.”

“Your father is. But if you want it done right, then you’ll help us get the necessary materials.” She nodded toward a barge at the far end of the dock. “They’re loading barrels of salpowder and glass and… I don’t know what else.” Knox caught her sniffing the wind, but she covered it nicely. “You’re going to show us what we need to make some things explode, then Knox and I are going to steal them. We need a timed sort of explosion. Limited in scope, more smoke and flash than harm done. Also, salpowder that will burn brighter but less hot, maybe with some interesting colors? Thanks in advance for your help.”

Altahn blinked only once. “This is for the dig?”

“Yes.”

“An explosion could take the whole thing down. We’d have done that ourselves if it meant we could get the sword that way.”

Anwei shrugged. “Didn’t I say smoke and flash? We don’t want to disturb anything inside the tomb itself. It’s more to prime the pump, encourage the workers they’d rather be anywhere but inside the excavation compound before we go in.”

Altahn blinked through that as well. But then he nodded. “All right.”

Deep inside, Knox’s humors twisted. All right? Just like that? Something caught at his attention from the stream of boats swishing under the trade road and over to the riverside docks. A familiar aura. His eyes snapped shut to give it a better look, then cracked back open. Why would Noa be out here, so far away from the malt fountains and parties and forbidden, pants-wearing dance performances that made up her existence?

Anwei squinted at Altahn for a moment, but then her bright smile came out. “I like a man who knows how to make decisions. Let’s go. Any funny business and you go headfirst into the brine.”

“Understood.” Altahn frowned at the barges. “I can tell from the barrel fittings which ones we want, but how are you going to get them? How are you even going to get onto the dock?” He pointed to the lone worker pushing yet another barrel under the close eye of three guards. “They don’t look like they tolerate gawking.”

“Which barrels?” Anwei prodded.

“Those middle ones are salpowder. And the ones on the end are another incendiary… two knuckles of either would be enough to blow the whole tomb to sand. Mixed and modified, and I think we can put together something flashy and toothless for you.”

“Perfect. Knox?”

Knox craned his neck to the side, wishing there were some way not to be talking directly over their prisoner. Noa’s aura had drawn closer, her boat almost at their heels. She’d messed things up badly enough at the ball. What were the odds that she’d show up here just in time to mess this up too? “I don’t like this.”

“After a year of complaining that I spend too much time planning? What do you think? Underwater?”

“The powder can’t get wet. Kind of important,” Altahn interjected.

“Are we worried about any boats? Maybe the one behind us, Anwei?” Knox turned just in time to see Noa’s pretty little skiff slick by them, four men rowing. She was seated on the prow, the governor’s son, Bear, at her feet, offering her a bowl of grapes. Flowers poured from the prow to dangle into the water around them, a sharp contrast to the line of fishy, weather-beaten boats headed for the docks.

Anwei’s smile disintegrated, making Knox’s stomach lurch. So there was something to be feared from the second khonin. Noa seemed not to notice them, her servants rowing the skiff so slowly that the boat hands around them swore under their collective breath, but not loud enough for the first and second khonins to hear. They were headed for the smaller tie-ups on the close side of the dock.

“Who is that?” Altahn’s voice was altogether too appreciative.

“Just ignore her,” Anwei said over Altahn’s head, a trace of exasperation needling through the bond that Knox didn’t understand. That was better than fear, at least. “You have the dry bags I gave you?”

He pulled one out to show her.

“Good. Altahn, move up and take Knox’s paddle. I’m going to need you to dig deep. Find your inner disgruntlement with society.” The canoe rocked a little as she stood up. “Ready, Knox?”

Knox nodded, eyeing the forty strides’ distance between them and the dock. An easy swim, so long as the guards and their spears had something other than his head to look at when he came out of the water. Anwei had moved them a little outside boat traffic and let the canoe’s nose wander, so the waves were sloshing around them.

“You’re going to have him swim over and just… try to take salpowder right out from under the guards’ noses?” Altahn’s voice crackled with disbelief. “Yaru’s supposed to be the best.”

“You underestimate us.” Anwei flashed a smile toward Knox, the secret happy one that he’d only ever seen her point at him. She dipped down to pick up the blanket that had covered Altahn at the same time Knox climbed onto his seat, flipping the fabric so loose flower petals danced up into the wind. Under cover of the blanket, Knox dove headfirst into the sea.

The cold water pressed against Knox. Opening his eyes underwater only made a blur of the pylons and gray depths, but he couldn’t rely on his aura to clear it up for him. At least, he didn’t want to—he had drawn on Calsta’s power the day he’d followed Lia, and he could still feel the weight of it flickering behind the wall, calling to him. It hadn’t been safe that day despite all the Devoted being drained, and it wasn’t safe now.

Kicking toward the barge’s rounded underside, Knox swam beneath the wide dock and hovered below the water’s surface, grateful there were a few things Calsta would always help him with whether he wanted her to or not. Being able to stay underwater longer than a normal person made it so Anwei could stop the boat well outside the area the guards would be watching. Calsta sighed at the back of his mind, annoyed. Why aren’t you taking in power, Knox? This should be easy.

If I wanted to get pinned down by the sword of every Devoted within miles, then get eaten by an auroshe, maybe. Lia and Ewan are diminished, but what if the Warlord sent Devoted ahead of her?

I wish I could explain to you how this works, but you know I can’t.

Explain what? When have you ever explained anything?

I can’t tell you everything, Knox. It’s too dangerous.

Dangerous? Knox listened for a moment, hoping she’d expound on that very intriguing detail, but she didn’t. He waited a count of ten. Twenty. Thirty. Then he finally surfaced to hear Anwei in fine form on the other side of the dock. Slithering through the water, Knox peeked up over the edge.

“I give my life to curing the sick, and you sell this godless stuff across the border? They’re using it to kill people.” She was throwing flower petals and stems, as if they were the worst sorts of weapons. “I demand you stop this shipment immediately. Only last year a member of my order was blown up during a disgusting dirt witch purging.…”

Altahn was holding the boat steady behind her, doing his best to look angry despite the fact that he was trying not to laugh. The guards had all gravitated toward Anwei, watching her with an odd combination of respect for her braids and amusement for… well, everything else. Knox pulled himself up onto the dock, then slunk over to the line of unloaded barrels. He ducked behind the closest one on the gulf side so that it blocked the guards from seeing him. Even the woman moving the barrels had stopped midroll, her mouth hanging open as she stared at Anwei in the boat.

Knox pulled the dry bag from his tunic, unrolled the top, and—

A guard turned toward him, signaling to the woman moving the barrels to carry on. His eyes caught on the dock beside Knox. Knox’s shadow flared out long and dark on the boards, the sun behind him giving him away.

This is the kind of help you give, Calsta? Why don’t you send clouds instead of sun to light up my hiding spot?

“What the—” Before the guard could finish, a multicolored streak skipped across the dock, a rain of flowers ghosting along behind it. It was Noa, twirling and dancing, a low voice egging her on from farther down the docks. Bear.

Knox pulled out the pipe and the canister Anwei had given him. Perhaps Noa was good for something, even if it was an accident that she was shielding him from attention. He popped open the canister’s clasp, and an acrid smell hit Knox’s nose. He thrust the pipe into the jar, then stabbed it into the side of the barrel.

Tar immediately began to bubble and boil around it, and the wood began to smolder, then crackled into nothing, so that the pipe pushed all the way through. Knox held out the little bag just in time for the whitish powder to begin pouring inside.

The guards were shouting, and Noa was laughing, but just as Knox pulled the bag out from under the stream of powder and folded it down, he saw a knife flash.

“Hey!” Anwei yelled. “You stab that girl, and her father will have your head on a platter quicker than…”

Knox pulled the pipe free and crawled to the other barrels Altahn had pointed to. He dipped the pipe back into the canister for good measure, then stabbed it into the side of the barrel.

There was a cry and a splash of water. Knox’s stomach twisted and he pulled himself up far enough to see Noa floundering in the waves, guards clustered around the spot where she’d fallen. She was laughing. “Remind me never to ask any of you bumbling idiots to a ball—”

“I’ll invite you!” Bear called. “Wait, let me help pull her out.”

Knox rolled his eyes and stuck a hand into his tunic for the second dry bag, his stomach twisting at the fumes. His eyes began to water, and he looked down at the spot of bubbling tar, pushing the pipe in a little harder. The smell hadn’t been so awful the first time.

Wind gusted over him, dragging his hair from its tie, as if Calsta wasn’t done playing with him yet today. But then the breeze fell off, a little stream of black smoke suddenly issuing from the wood around Knox’s pipe. Was it supposed to smoke?

In less than a second, the smoke went from a little trickle to a boiling river, the smell making Knox gag.

“Go!” Altahn’s voice came spearing through the wind. “Nameless god curse it, get out of there!”

The guards turned to see whom he was yelling at, only to find smoke billowing up from the salpowder barrels. Some of the powder inside Knox’s barrel had emptied into the dry bag, so Knox hurriedly tied it off, stuffed it into his pocket, then jumped off the dock just as the guards rushed toward him.

Before he hit the water, a force slammed into Knox’s back, the crack of a thousand thunderclaps tearing through his ears, and slapped him belly-down onto the waves. Calsta was with him before he could even think, helping him to remember his lungs didn’t need air, that he could wait. That the water was supposed to be a foamy mass of broken boards and limbs going this way and that.

He dove deeper, Anwei a warm dose of panic at the back of his head. After kicking under all the bubbles and flares of golden fire, Knox surfaced over where the boat had been. Anwei waited only long enough to see his hand was on the prow and he was breathing before she started rowing.

Knox let the boat tow him clear to the bridge between the Water Cay and the dry market, where the drum tower stabbed the sky. Anwei slowed, then moved forward to help him in.

“You’re all right?” Altahn’s voice cut through them. “Gods above, was that planned? Blow up the dock so they think it was an accident? I mean, it didn’t quite come off, but that was… interesting, anyway.”

Anwei cleared her throat, not disabusing Altahn of the notion as she dragged Knox over the side of the boat and made him sit back against the rear seat. Knox dug down into his tunic and pulled out the two dry bags, holding them up with a grin.

A smile cracked Anwei’s face too. “Well, that’s one thing done.”

At the back of Knox’s head, Noa’s familiar aura appeared once again. He twisted to look at her, sopping wet and laughing so hard it seemed like she might fall off the boat. She’d made it off the dock, at least, though Bear seemed not to have been so fortunate, because he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. When the skiff swung past them, Knox didn’t understand the way Noa sat up, her face changing for a fraction of a second when she looked at them.

No. When she looked at Anwei, behind him. Noa’s expression cleared, as if she were taking off a mask, and she pointed at Anwei like she was asking for an answer to a question or perhaps driving a point home. But it lasted only a split second, and then Noa was back to laughing with her boat hands, the skiff headed toward the private Water Cay docks.

When Knox turned back to Anwei, she was shaking her head, almost laughing. All the traces of fear from before were gone.

Altahn waved to get Anwei’s attention. “Seriously, who is that?” He swiveled to look at Knox when Anwei didn’t answer. “Was she a part of this too?”

Anwei finally reached out and took the two dry bags from Knox, looking them over as if she were inspecting them for holes, but Knox could feel her thinking. Deciding something. When she finally looked back at the Trib, Knox knew something had changed. “Of course she was. Didn’t your father tell you we’re the best?”

Anwei swaddled Altahn in the blanket before any spies from his clan could spot them on the way back to the apothecary, then stayed in the apothecary itself only long enough to be sure he was locked in Knox’s room before heading out to meet with Shale. She couldn’t bear to look Knox straight in the eye. Her heart had stopped the moment that barrel exploded. The guards were supposed to have been the danger, not the powder. And then Knox had just swum back to the boat, calm as you fancy, handed her the bags, and waved at Noa as she went by.

Noa. Blasted Noa. She had been a help.

Shaking her head, Anwei couldn’t help but laugh again. Noa had caught her red-handed, and the idea of her being a part of this felt… different.

Exciting, as if Anwei were gathering her favorite things around her and getting ready to do something new. Not the way she expected to feel only days away from finally destroying Arun’s murderer—with hardly any information and plans that depended on maybes and perhapses. Anwei had been planning every moment of every day months in advance for years, never entering a house until she knew for sure what she’d find inside, and all of it had been thrown out in favor of… this. Altahn locked in Knox’s room, Noa twirling in and out as she pleased, and Knox staring into her eyes under the temple, his gaze flickering down to touch her lips…

Anwei forced herself to step into her canoe and untie it from the dock. To sit down and dip her paddle into the river, pointing herself toward the Fig Cay. Everything was out of control.

And deep in her heart Anwei knew she liked it better than any of her years alone.

But that didn’t mean it would get her what she wanted. Everything itched like the new medicine bag she’d bought, which sat weirdly across her body and was soft in all the wrong places. Anwei cleared her head one thought at a time as she paddled through the crowded channel, thinking of Shale waiting for her by the plague house. He couldn’t know that things were leaping in her hands like a live fish attempting escape.

When Anwei tied up her boat at a rotting Fig Cay dock, she waved to the Crowteeth lookout before walking to the wet market. The kynate was waiting for her next to a palifruit stand in the shadow of the plague house, the building casting a long shadow across all the little stands as if it were watching, waiting for its next victim to swallow. Anwei strolled along the floating walkways to pick up one of the round palifruits, testing its skin with her fingers before handing it to the seller to cut. Shale pulled a packet from inside his vest and slid it into her bag. It was heavy, clinking as it settled atop her herbs. A sheaf of vellum came next, which he held out for her to take.

Accepting the sheets, she nodded to the alleyway behind the stand. “There’s a loose brick seven in, three up from the ground in there,” she murmured. “I’ll leave the time, date, and address for you to meet us when we have the sword. It’ll be within the next few days. We’ll bring the sword, you bring the rest of the money, then we’ll tell you where your son is.”

“You just want me to check that alley every day until…”

Anwei smiled at the seller as he held out the cut melon. She put her coins on the table, gathered the juicy pieces to her chest, then walked away without saying anything else. A flicker of yellow scarf caught her eye as she walked toward the plague house. Jecks had seen Shale and had promised to follow him, so she’d soon know if Altahn had spoken true—if Shale was a silly old man who didn’t know how to deal with a thief or if there was more to this deal than she could see.

When she reached the plague house, Anwei handed the palifruit to the surprised leech sitting just inside the door. He didn’t protest when she went straight to Jecks’s family’s room. Her nose curled with the scent of so much nothing—it was significantly worse now. Anwei opened the door to the sickroom and knelt beside the little girl’s bed. She smelled more of nothing than gamtooth now.

A familiar panic began to build inside Anwei, her hands shaking.

Her hands, which could do nothing.

“You can help us, healer, can’t you?” Jecks’s partner rolled over in his bed, reaching out to touch his daughter’s arm.

Anwei licked her lips. And went to work.